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In summer time we can’t work till water does appear.
And if this does not happen, the season is severe,
Then our fingers are numb’d by keen winter frosts or snow,
And few can brave the hardships that we poor grinders do.
When war is proclaimed, our masters quickly cry,
“Orders countermanded,” our goods we all lay by;
Your prices we must sattle and you’ll be stinted too –
There’s few suffer such hardships as we poor grinders do.
There seldom comes a day but our dairy-maid goes wrong
And if that does not happen, perhaps we break a stone,
Which may wound us for life, or give us our final blow,
There’s few suffer such hardships as we poor grinders do.
(Excerpt from The Grinders Hardships, a once popular song)
Sheffield has five main rivers, and a number of smaller, but significant, streams and brooks. Only the River Don has any particular width for any of its length, and even the Don, when it enters Sheffield, can be so shallow as to allow it to be crossed easily. Most of the other rivers can be leaped across for much of their length. Yet, it was these fast-flowing streams and rivers, running down from the local hills, which originally gave Sheffield the power to produce knives of world-renown.
Because the rivers were small, and the flow of water could not be consistently relied upon, dams (mill ponds) were built to assist in harnessing their power, and make it easier to control. However, in the summer months or in times of drought, there might not be enough water available to make the ‘dairy-maids’ (as the local grinders called the water-wheels) spin, meaning there was no work, and thus no pay for the grinders.
I grew up close to the River Porter or Porter Brook, which flows down from the South Yorkshire moors to the west of the city, to its eventual confluence with the River Sheaf, the small river from which Sheffield takes its name, under Platform One of Sheffield Midland Railway Station. In the hey-day of water-power, a score of wheels lined its length.
The Porter is named for its brownish colour, said to be similar to the colour of porter ale. This is particularly noticeable in the upper reaches of the river where the banks are frequently orange with natural iron deposits.
At a lonely little hillock, five miles to the West of Sheffield, high up on Hallam Moor, if you lie down and put your ear to the ground, you can just hear the feint burble of the infant River Porter. A few hundred yards away, as the moor turns into farmland, the grass dampens and the river begins to emerge from the ground for the first time, as a mere trickle running along the side of a dry-stone wall. A further few hundred yards later, it flows through the gutter built under a road, and emerges at Porter Clough. The scenic glen is such a peaceful place, it’s hard to believe that the bustle of the city centre is just a few miles away, and that further down the valley, and for hundreds of years, there was once the noise of early industry.
The narrow stream winds its way down the steep-sided valley, around rocks and under ancient bridges and pathways, eventually being joined by the Mayfield Brook, a river of similar size, which once powered the two ancient Fulwood Corn Mills, situated just above the confluence of the two rivers. The Upper Fulwood Corn Mill was built prior to 1641, and the Nether Mill added after 1757. At one time, Thomas Boulsover (1704-1788), the inventor of Sheffield plate, used part of the Upper Mill as a buffing and polishing shop for buttons and snuff boxes. Some of the buildings still survive.
Now fattened by the waters of the Mayfield, the Porter flows under Carr Bridge, and then on to the first of the remaining mill dams, which were once strung along the length of the river like pearls on a necklace.
Forge Dam was built in or just before 1760, and was part of Thomas Boulsover’s industrial empire. Boulsover first tried making paper at the site, which was unsuccessful due to ochre in the water, and he later had a button factory here, as well as a forge and rolling mill. A large wheel operated two tilt-hammers for the forge, and a smaller wheel operated the bellows. The forge was run by a succession of managers and forging companies until 1887 or 1888. The dam itself is of an unusual construction, the river flows directly into it, with the goit (or channel) for the wheels leaving the dam at the opposite end, and the surplus water leaving over a weir.
In 1900, Forge Dam was sold to a showman, Herbert Maxfield, who converted the dam into a boating lake, and in 1939 the dam and the surrounding buildings were sold to Sheffield Corporation, and a cafe and children’s playground were added to the boating lake, and functioned as public amenities. I remember walking to Forge Dam with my grandfather when I was three years-old, and I later fished the dam, ate in the cafe, and even played truant from school there. Unfortunately, over the last twenty or so years, the dam has been allowed to silt up to the extent that there is now only a relatively narrow passage for the river, and neither boating nor fishing is possible.
The remains of the old forge are hidden away behind the cafe
The cafe is worth further mention. The building was originally Walkley Methodist Hall, but in the 1930’s, it was dismantled and brought to Forge Dam by horse and cart from Walkley to the north of the city. Here it was reassembled as a cafe, and it has functioned as one ever since. I very well remember the proprietor Mr Chapman and his wife, who took over the cafe in 1968, and ran it for 27 years. The cafe is now managed by their grandson, Nick. Mr Chapman still pops in every Friday apparently, just to make sure everything is alright!
A few hundred yards past Forge Dam, a narrow head goit takes water from the Porter, running through the woods for a quarter of a mile to feed the next dam along the Porter Valley, Wire Mill Dam, which was also originally owned by Thomas Boulsover, who lived in nearby Whiteley Wood Hall. Wire Mill Dam, originally called Whiteley Woods Dam, was built to power a rolling mill in 1769, but around 1829 or 1830, the mill was converted to a grinding hull (workshop) for saws and edged tools. Two overshot wheels 34 ½ feet in diameter and 4 ½ feet wide, produced power for the grinding and glazing ‘trows’ (the rectangular trough in which the grindstone sits).
The fashion for Crinoline dresses led to an increase in the demand for wire, and around 1861 the works were converted to wire production. A new single wheel with a diameter of forty feet was installed, being the biggest water-wheel in Sheffield. It was possible to power such large wheels because of the substantial head of water (about 10 feet) created by the steep descent of the Porter from the beginning of the head goit, and its position several hundred yards below the dam and works.
Like Forge Dam, Wire Mill Dam later became a public amenity, being used in the 1960’s by model boat enthusiasts, and today a popular fishing spot. Some of the original workers cottages still stand below the dam, and on the bank-side there is a monument to Thomas Boulsover, erected by Sheffield’s Master Cutler in 1926, and built partly from stone taken from the mill.
The next mill along the Porter has had various names, including Porter Wheel, Holme Wheel, Whiteley Wood Bottoms Wheel, Nether Mill, and Leather Wheel, by which name it is usually referred to today. In 1754, the newly-built wheel powered a grinding hull with six trows, and operated until 1884. The mill was demolished in 1907, and the dam filled in fifty years later, but the weir and long head goit remain.
It is only a few more yards from the site of the Leather Wheel until the next weir and head goit, which flows into the dam of Shepherd Wheel, which appears to be its official name. However, I lived in the local area most of my life, did several school projects about the wheel, and even did my first ‘work experience’ there, and I have always known it as, and heard it called, ‘Shepherd’s Wheel’, after its one-time owner, one Edward Shepherd, so I hope that I can be excused for continuing to call it by that name. The wheel may also have once been tenanted, or even built, by one of my distant ancestors.
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The cafe owner stocked the dam with trout, but before that there were just tiny sticklebacks, and small perch and gudgeon. I only fished there when I was very small. When I was older I used to travel two counties away to wet a line, and even then the fish we were catching were nothing compared to what the local lads are pulling out of the canal these days. It's amazing how the rivers have been cleaned up here, compared to the filthy state most of them were in when I was growing up :thumbup:
